What the triggering of Article 50 means for your mortgage, savings, debt and more

On Wednesday, the UK formally triggers Article 50, the start of the two-year negotiation process of leaving the European Union – the culmination of the vote to leave the EU in June 2016.

The day after that vote I wrote an instant first impressions news analysis guide on what Brexit is likely to mean for your finances. Having revisited it at the beginning of this year, I wanted to take another look at this crucial junction, to see where we are now.

To make it easy to see (and for me to do) I’m going to bash it out as a quick commentary on the original text, with all the updates in this colour…

Before I begin though, I think the most important thing to say is while this is a hugely symbolic moment, for the pound in your pocket it’s actually of little impact. In the world of financial markets, when something is pre-announced, that’s the point when its impact is factored in – rather than when it actually happens.

We’ve known Article 50 would be triggered for some time, and for the last week we’ve even known the date it’s coming, so all the sentimental change due to it has been factored in. In other words it’s the start of our national journey, but exactly where we’ll go and how we’ll get there is still somewhat vague. So back to the original article…

The UK has voted to leave the European Union, in a landmark referendum result – and many have questions and worries over their personal finances following the outcome.

What a monumental decision. This will be a very different Britain. And regardless of how you voted, we need to work together to ensure it’s for the better. There’s a risk there will be financial pain to get there, but if so, the country has chosen it’s a price worth paying.

Many of you have been sending me questions via my Twitter and Facebook feeds with queries and concerns about the personal finance impact, so I want to bash out some answers as best I can.

This isn’t easy. Brexit seems to have caused political anarchy.

Things have thankfully calmed down somewhat, though of course we’ve since had Donald Trump take over the US presidency, a vote – like Brexit – seemingly against the established way of doing things. This yearning for things to be different seems to be the driving force for both, and people were willing to vote for Brexit or Trump as the instrument of that change, and now for good or bad we face the reality of that.

We have huge Labour and Tory splits. Some people are pushing to renege on the referendum by calling for a second one. And the union could potentially split.

Not much has changed on this since, apart from clarification of the push from Scotland towards a second referendum there…

From this point on though, I’m going to assume that Brexit will happen as was voted for.

Certainly with the triggering of Article 50 that now seems even more certain. It would likely take a general election, with a win by a party that had a manifesto pledge not to follow through with Brexit, for things to be overturned. Yet as we now have fixed-term Parliaments, and the next election is scheduled for May 2020 (ie, after the two-year Article 50 timetable) it is an unlikely, though not impossible, eventuality.

What is far more open is how we will leave the EU – will we want or get a trade deal with the EU?

The underlying political problem caused by the Brexit vote is that we had a black and white question covering a rainbow of issues.

Many, including the PM, have used the Brexit vote to impute many things – such as ‘people want to leave the single market’, or they want a ‘crackdown on immigration’. And certainly there will be many who voted Brexit who this chimes with – however not all.

And with a vote as tight as it was – at 52% to 48% – it only takes 1 in 25 Brexit voters to disagree on an element (eg, those who don’t want the EU but do want the single market) to potentially mean that the majority view is the other way.

That of course assumes remainers are homogeneous too, which is equally wrong.

Yet a Twitter poll I did a few months ago on the single market and people’s Brexit vote, while far from a representative sample, did indicate the possibility that more leavers are pro the single market than remainers are anti it.

The truth is, on a whole host of Brexit-related issues, we don’t know what the majority of Britons actually want, nor what is best. All we know is that on 23 June 2016 most people chose for us to leave the EU. That was done by a national plebiscite – ie, direct democracy, bypassing our usual system of representative democracy (where we vote for MPs then they decide).

I very much support referenda on vast-scale issues of long-term constitutional change such as this, but the poor design of this one has left us in the lurch. We have bound our politicians to one outcome, but left it open to a vast range of interpretations – a recipe for sloth, inconsistency and uncertainty.

Part I: What’s going to change and when will it happen?

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, it’s worth looking at the big picture. Brexit is a sizeable upheaval. Most of it won’t happen immediately you can say that again sister!, so it’s important to understand the timeline. I split the changes into three.

Sentiment & market changes – already started, lasting a few years. These are changes caused by market movements and sentiment. That’s because the fact we’re leaving the EU will change some of the financial decisions people make. So anything governed by stock market, currency values and, to a lesser extent, interest rates could see change straightaway.

Yet it isn’t just City sentiment either. Some people have told me their home-buying chain’s been broken by buyers pulling out, others that their income’s hit as companies are putting projects on hold, and yet more just retrenching from everyday transactions. I’ve even been asked: “I’m in the middle of changing bank account, should I stop?”

This fear factor has lessened quite substantially since the knee-jerk initial shock. And people have got on with things, or for the pessimists, at least they’ve accepted the certainty of uncertainty.

My suspicion is one of the things the economists got wrong about the short-term shock is they viewed it from a ‘London’ perspective that people would be scared, worried and pessimistic; yet actually outside of the capital’s bubble many (unsurprisingly as they voted for it) saw the result as a positive.

It isn’t to argue these changes aren’t or shouldn’t be real. After all, they’re not based on anything tangible, rather how people feel. Yet it is possible to talk ourselves into recession – as if people act in a way that it’s happening, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The most important thing to do is keep calm, carry on and act normal. If we can manage to do that collectively, the impact of this sentiment change will be minimal.

I’m very glad I took this stance straightaway. In fact the video I did at 7am on the day of the result – see below – where I pushed for calm after being swamped on social media with questions, was watched an outrageous number of times, hitting nearly one million views by the end of the day. I hope it did some good.

Of course things like a drop in the pound do have a real impact – as has been much covered, it will impact holiday costs, petrol prices and other supplies. Plus it makes imports more expensive, though it does help exporters as it reduces their prices.

However, it’s worth remembering the pound rate moves every day. The fact it’s dropped doesn’t mean it’ll stay there – it could rise, or, for that matter, fall further. Much of the coverage has acted as if this is a done deal, rather than an ongoing continuum of price change, which is more accurate.

The pound is still in the doldrums, far more so against the dollar than the euro, and for the moment, this looks to be an ongoing revaluation.

Of course the impact of that is pretty straightforward.

Things are getting more expensive if either a) we import them or the constituent materials; or b) they’re supplied by a non-UK firm. The famous Marmite-gate is an example of this, but it has also factored into more significant areas – it’s one of the reasons (the other being wholesale price rises) for the rapid increase in gas and electricity prices.

Equally though, while the effect is smaller, it has boosted UK exports which helps some sectors of the economy, and the hope is that will trickle down to the population as a whole.

Many people ask me how long the pound will stay weak. My answer is still ‘no idea’ – if we knew where the currency markets were going, they’d already be there, as people would’ve bought and sold based on that.

While it may sound strange, last week we were uncertain over whether things would be uncertain. At least now we know they will be. And as we had to in the financial crisis of 2007, people will adapt and get used to that uncertainty. At the moment, some of the reaction, especially for those who voted remain, is just shock.

Warning: Let’s not talk ourselves into a recession – here’s a two-minute clip from Radio 5 Live on Mon 27 Jun, but better to listen to it in context of the whole programme.

New Government changes – starts September 2016.

Update Tuesday 12 July: With the uncontested Conservative leadership contest, this has happened much more quickly than expected, with Theresa May becoming Prime Minister on 13 July 2016.

David Cameron has resigned as Prime Minister. We will almost certainly have a new Conservative Government in place by September. There is even an outside chance that a general election will be called, though that is unlikely, as it would require a two thirds majority of the House of Commons to vote for it.

A new Government and Chancellor may have different priorities, though if it’s Conservative it’ll likely be on roughly the same track. It could change benefits policy for example, as there have been disputes within the Tory party over that. It could even see the bedroom tax repealed (that’s speculation, but we know it hasn’t worked and a clean start makes a U-turn easier).

We’ll likely have a different course for budgets and legislation too. The main Conservative party divisions have not been over personal finance, however, so it’s unlikely we’ll see too much unplanned, substantial policy change in this area.

I think this nailed the generality but sadly not the specific. We’ve already seen policy change on the back of the new administration. For example, the scrapping of the secondary annuities market, and it’s still relatively early days. Theresa May’s Government has tried to distance itself from Cameron’s, certainly being far more pro-Brexit, but where this will take us in relation to other avenues, who knows?

Rule, trade and immigration changes – starts September 2018 at the earliest.The UK has not left the EU. For that to happen, the Government almost certainly has to enact Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon.David Cameron has said he won’t do this, so it’ll be for the new Prime Minister in September – and even when that happens, while there is a maximum two year formal negotiating period, many expect in practice it may last a lot longer, so we’re likely talking late 2018 at the earliest.

Well, now we know it will be March 2019 at the earliest, as Article 50 negotiations are meant to be concluded two years after they start, but as with all things Brexit, we’re in uncharted territory, so who knows?

That means all existing rules and regulations that derive from our membership of the European Union – whether relating to mobile roaming, EHICs, the Mortgage Credit Directive or flight delays – currently remain unchanged due to the vote (though there may be other reasons for change). And they’re likely to remain that way for two years and quite possibly longer.

There’s been much talk of workers’ rights and other rights changes when we leave the EU, but little has been mentioned about consumer rights. Today on behalf of MoneySavingExpert and alongside Which? and Citizens Advice we’ve written an open letter to the Prime Minister asking for a cross-departmental working group on the consumer impact of Brexit to be set up.

This is also the timing for the change of our trade relationship with the EU. And it’s very important to understand this…

Of course, it’s very easy these days to frame everything with a Brexit narrative –whereas in truth there are many other factors at play. However, where I have commented, due to the nature of what this blog is about I’ve mainly kept it within the EU sphere.

Q. How will this affect ‘mortgage prisoners’ due to the EU Mortgage Credit Directive?

A. I’ve been campaigning about the EU Mortgage Credit Directive’s impact on remortgaging. Sensible rules have been introduced to ensure that first-timers can afford their mortgages, but the same rules are also being applied to those just switching their mortgage deal.

This has led to the farce of some people being told “you can’t afford a cheaper mortgage”.

When challenged on this, the EU tells me that this is due to how our regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) interprets the directive, while the FCA says it has no choice and that it’s an EU rule.

The UK will no longer be bound by this directive once we leave in a couple of years. Until then, the question is: can the FCA reinterpret? Watch this space.

I’ve continued working on this – we put in an Autumn Statement Budget Submission, and there’s definitely sympathy to this view out there. But most of the feedback still suggests that little can be done while we’re in the EU. I’m not stopping here though.

I’ve heard good mutterings from the powers that be on this. They want us to put together a dossier of evidence of people affected and we’re working on that at the moment.

Q. What’s going to happen to house prices – is it worth me completing my purchase?

A. House prices are a funny thing. In most areas we worry about price rises, but for homes many celebrate it. And in some ways that’s right – increased prices can lower your loan to value, which means a cheaper mortgage is possible. Plus if you sell the property and aren’t moving to a bigger one, you can cash in. Yet for others, rising house prices stop them ever owning a property.

As for what’ll happen due to Brexit, that’s anyone’s guess. It’s possible there will be market uncertainty, and certainly initial reports show a few people pulling out of deals, which will lower demand and could impact prices – yet that could just be initial shock and within a few weeks it may settle down.

However, we still have an issue with undersupply in many parts of the country, which is a powerful factor in keeping prices at current high levels. See our Free House Price Valuations guide for more.

A number of people have been asking if they should complete on the house they’re in the process of buying. If it’s the house that’s right for you, it’s within your budget and you’ve a decent mortgage that you can afford, then I think the best human decision, if not financial, is to carry on and go for it.

The most important thing is to make a good decision based on the factors you know, but doing that doesn’t guarantee you a good outcome. For more on what I mean by that, see my How To Make Good Financial Decisions guide.

Not much has changed here.

Q. Will I still be able to get a Help to Buy ISA?

A. Yes. The Help to Buy ISA is a UK Government savings scheme, not an EU scheme. It allows first-time buyers to save for a mortgage deposit with the state adding 25% on top, up to £3,000 (see our guide on the top Help to Buy ISAs available).

While a new Government could change its mind, this was a Conservative policy, so it would seem a strange move. In the unlikely event it did change its mind, it would likely close it to new entrants, rather than cut the benefit to those who already have one (though again, nothing’s guaranteed).

Indeed you can still get it, and if you’re a first-time buyer it’s still worth opening one.

Q. What about Lifetime ISAs?

A. These savings and investment schemes are due to launch next April. This is a George Osborne policy to give a 25% boost to first-time home buyers and retirement savings (see how in our Lifetime ISAs guide). While it’s likely to continue, as it’s not launched yet, there is a chance a new Government could scrap it before it starts, as a change of policy direction. My guess is it’ll stay, however.

Lifetime ISAs will launch very soon, on 6 April. There are a number of stocks and shares providers offering them, but only one savings provider has so far said it will (see our Lifetime ISA guide). Though this is far more about providers’ concerns they’ll be done for mis-selling the ‘retirement’ element of Lifetime ISAs than anything to do with Brexit.

Q. Will savings rates drop?

A. It’s tough to see them get much lower – already the top standard easy access deal is 1.27% (see Top Savings for how to get 3%). Yet again, though, this one does depend on UK interest rate policy.

Grrrr. I was wrong here. They have gone lower. The top instant access rate is now down to 1% (see the link above), yet it’s mainly the high interest savings bank accounts that have borne the brunt of this. Santander 123, Halifax Reward, Club Lloyds and others have all cut (or announced plans) to cut their rates.

For those bank accounts that have already seen rate cuts, I think and hope that’s the end of it. Many of those cuts came on the back of August’s UK base rate drop, where the Bank of England guidance was hinting at further cuts to come.

It’s my view that these bank accounts were cut more than they otherwise would have been because of this (unlike normal savings where rates move all the time, bank accounts aren’t changed regularly, so banks tried to take the hit in one go). However, UK base rates haven’t fallen further, so there’s no need for more cuts – though I doubt they’ll increase things either.

Again, one thing we have started to see are decent increases in the rate of long-term fixed-rate savings caused by a mix of competitive pressures and potential future rate rises, see Top Fixed Savings for details.

Q. Are my savings safe?

A. This is a time of uncertainty and change, so I’m not surprised to have had a lot of people asking that question. UK banks and building societies are required to have much bigger capital reserves now than they did in 2007. Plus there are a variety of new measures in place to prevent savings collapse (for example, they’d try to move the savings to another bank rather than allow it to collapse and pay out).

One cause for concern for some of you is the fact that the underlying savings safety guarantee is an EU rule. However, the EU only dictates the amount of deposit protection we have.

The deposit protection scheme itself is UK-mandated, and is run by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, meaning that savings up to £75,000 with a bank or building society (or banking group) are protected and will remain so, at least for the next couple of years while negotiations to leave are ongoing.

In fact, the protection UK accounts get recently dropped from £85,000 to £75,000 because of fluctuations in the euro’s value, even though many regulators here didn’t want it to. So it could be a positive that this protection can be at a set level in future that isn’t dependent on the value of currencies. More info on how the protections work in Are My Savings Safe?

Here we’ve seen a silver lining to the plummet of the pound, the fact it’s weaker now means the level of protection was upped to £85,000 on 30 January 2017.Q. My savings are with an overseas-protected bank, eg, RCI or Fidor – what’s the situation there?

A. As we’ve always warned, a few savings accounts aren’t fully UK-regulated. In the unlikely event the bank providing such an account went bust, your €100,000 protection (equiv to the £75,000 on the UK scheme) comes from a foreign government, eg, RCI is France, Fidor is German. So you should only do this if you’re happy with the fact that it’d bail you out.

There is no change in that, until at least the point when we actually leave the EU in a couple of years’ time – what happens after that is one of those things that will need negotiating.

No new info.

Q. My savings are with Santander, that’s Spanish; is that a worry?

A. Don’t let the question confuse you. Most banks operating in the UK, even if their parent company is elsewhere, are fully UK-regulated banks.

The most famous one is Santander (and many MoneySavers have it due to the best-buy Santander 123). Yet this is a fully-regulated UK bank, and a big one at that: its funds are ring-fenced from the Spanish parent group. So don’t think of it as Spanish.

Q. Is this going to affect the rate at which I can get credit card or personal loans?

A. I think that’s unlikely. These rates are far less tightly linked to interest rates than mortgages. One consideration would be if the banks were concerned to keep very high capital ratios so became more cautious about lending. Yet overall I don’t see Brexit playing a big part in this (other changes of course, as always can change these things).

Certainly right now the credit card market for shifting debts is offering record deals, with up to 40 months 0% available – so if you’re paying debt on existing credit or store cards, just for safety it’s worth sorting now. See our top balance transfers guide for all details. For more on borrowing best buys check out the cards and loans section of our site.

If anything, things have become cheaper since, with new cheapestpersonal loansand longest-ever 0% balance transfer deals. However, I don’t particularly see that as Brexit-related. This is just the same continued momentum that we were seeing beforehand.

Q. Has my private pension lost money due to the drop in the FTSE and other investments?

A. If your pension is invested in stocks and shares and you were to cash it in today, yes – you’d have lost money compared with before the referendum.

Although if your pension isn’t being cashed in today, it’s just a paper loss. The markets move every day (though current moves are a lot bigger than most days). It’s only when you crystallise that by buying or selling that there is an actual impact.

So the risk in an investment is the same as always. You hope it moves up, you risk it going down, it changes every day and the timing of when you do the transaction is what counts.

The only thing I can guarantee you about the future of shares is they will go up, go down, or stay the same.

Well, since then the FTSE 100 has bounced back very strongly – then again, as most of the firms in that index are international companies that make money right across the world – the pound’s weakness artificially inflates their profits so they benefit (in other words if they make money in dollars, when it’s converted into pounds to publish their profit figures, it looks bigger because a million dollars buys more pounds than it did).

Generally, smaller UK public companies fared worse in the initial post-Brexit world, but while not quite booming as much as the FTSE 100 compared with before the vote, the other indices have bounced back too.

For those wanting to know what happens next with share prices, I shall repeat my line from the time… “the only thing I can guarantee you about the future of shares is they will go up, go down, or stay the same”.Q. As the market’s dropped, is now a buying opportunity for shares, or my shares ISA?

A. Ask me in a year or two’s time when I have the benefit of hindsight. No one can predict the markets. The rule ‘what goes down, must go up’ simply isn’t true. It may well turn out to be a good time; equally things could fall further. And if you’re investing in individual shares, they’re even more volatile than the rest of the markets.

Well, it wasn’t a bad time. Yet to bag those gains you’d need to sell. But should you sell now or wait – that’s the million dollar question. And one I’ve no clue of the answer to.

Q. Should I be buying my holiday money – euros, dollars, etc – now?

A. I’m afraid I can’t answer that without a crystal ball. There is huge volatility on the currency markets and they could move any way.

It’s worth putting the current rates (at the time of writing) in a bit of perspective though. Against the euro the pound was nearing €1.30 before the result and is now around the €1.20 mark. This time last summer it bought €1.43 at its peak. However, the summer before it was €1.20 and the year before that €1.15 – so this isn’t a historical anomaly.

Part of that is because the euro itself has also weakened due to the Brexit vote, so the relative change isn’t as much. The pound has faced a much bigger drop against the dollar, where it’s at an over 30 year low, hanging around the £1 buys roughly $1.35 mark.

If you’re worried, one option is to buy from a firm that allows you to order but with a cancellation right. So you lock in today’s rate, but if it improves you cancel and buy elsewhere (see my blog on Buying euros/dollars before the referendum, which is still relevant now as it’s about protecting yourself from volatility).

A. Be wary of friends giving you definitive facts about the markets – be it shares, house prices or the pound. These things move, there are no rules.

Q. Will I still be able to use my EHIC?

A. The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is an agreement between countries in the EU and European Economic Area. The EHIC gets you free or discounted medical care in EU member countries but also in Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, plus Switzerland, which isn’t in either the EU and European Economic Area.

The vote may affect this in future but again, nothing is likely to happen for at least the next two years. For now travellers can and should carry on using the scheme as normal.

Remember the EHIC is free and you should never pay for it. Plus if you’ve got one, check whether it’s still in date. Full help is available in our Free EHIC guide.

No news on this yet – still too early to tell.

Q. My passport says ‘European Union’ on the front – do I need a new one?

A. Although your passport says European Union on the front that’s just a branding thing – it’s actually issued by the UK Government, so it’s a UK passport.

What the vote result may mean for travel within the European Union is one of the bigger unknowns that will be part of negotiations, but until we leave the EU (which will not be for at least another two years) things should be mostly unaffected.

Q. Will I still be able to claim for flight delays?

A. If you’re delayed for more than three hours on an EU-regulated flight, where it’s the airline’s fault, EU regulation 261/2004 allows you to get fixed compensation of at least €250 per person (when we checked, this was about £200, but this figure’s likely to change).

However, as this regulation comes from the EU, it’s likely that when Brexit is rubber-stamped, this will stop. For that NOT to happen, the UK would need to launch its own flight delay legislation.

It’s important to note though that until we leave the EU, there will be no change. The Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed there will be no immediate change and says it will be working with the Department for Transport in the coming months as Brexit discussions progress.

But overall the best information is if you have had a delayed flight, make your complaint sooner rather than later. See our Flight Delay Compensation guide for full help and a free tool to do it.

No change or news on this as yet, though the CAA has recently said it will take action on airlines that haven’t been paying when they should have been.

Q. What about mobile roaming in the EU?

A. The EU is set to ban roaming fees within the EU from June 2017, yet when we leave Europe we will be outside of this. The UK Government could legislate on roaming but it doesn’t currently do that for those roaming outside the EU, so why would it do it for roaming within? Although, of course, it may be politically expedient for it to do so, as a ‘see, you didn’t miss out due to Brexit’ policy. Only time will tell.

No change or news on this as yet.

Q. I’ve got a European travel insurance policy – will that change?

A. There shouldn’t be any change. Europe travel insurance policies are based on geography, not EU politics. Some actually even cover some North African countries around the Mediterranean basin.

When we do leave the EU we may see some mild policy changes, due to changes in ‘actuarial risk’ (especially if there are no longer EHICs to offset some costs to insurers of medical conditions). Yet of all the concerns, this one isn’t a big one.

Q. What will happen to the state pension?

A. There was much talk from politicians in the EU referendum campaign about the possible impact on the state pension. It wasn’t about the pension itself, but rather a prediction that there would be a huge economic downturn and the state pension would need to be cut to pay for it.

So for now the state pension stays the same. Whether there’ll be any change to it is a question of policy for future Governments, but there’s nothing definite planned currently.

No change or news on this as yet.

Q. Will there be changes to my benefits?

A. The benefits system in the UK is almost entirely governed by UK Parliament, not Europe (with some exceptions on benefits for those who aren’t UK citizens).

So benefits are unlikely to be directly impacted by the vote to leave the EU. However, it’s of course possible that a new Government will have a different stance on benefits and make changes when it comes in.

To an extent we’ve seen a small change with the new Tory administration slowing the momentum of cuts to benefits and disability benefits. Of course, that still means cuts, but the knife isn’t quite as big as before.

Q. Will my consumer rights be affected?

A. While many consumer rights are based on EU directives, they’re actually enshrined in UK law. So unless the UK Government decides to change the law, these rights will stay the same. It may take some unpicking though.

We’re pushing the Government to set up a working group on this with MSE, Which?, Citizens Advice and others and indeed sent a joint letter to the PM about it today.

Q. Will I still be able to play the Euromillions?

A. Not the biggest worry, but you asked, so we’ve answered. Camelot, which runs the National Lottery, has confirmed that we will still be able to play the Euromillions despite Brexit. Better still, you can save money and not bother!Q. Will we still be in Eurovision?

A. Not financial, but I couldn’t resist answering it. Eurovision is done by the European Broadcasting Union, not the EU, so there’s no change there. I mean, come on – they allow Australia and Azerbaijan in.

And as a side note, interesting that we nearly had a Finnish winner of the UK X Factor this year, with Saara Aalto coming a very close second place. Who says the European project is over… (joke folks, joke!)

For wider issues such as migration and sentiment, see my EU In or Out? blog, which takes you through these.

We’ll be following developments over the coming weeks and months and will have all the latest in the weekly email.

Martin’s initial reaction video:

Martin posted the following short video at 7am on the day of the vote result, with a first reaction to the possible impact on mortgages, house prices, savings, inflation and the pound. It’s kept here as public record, though obviously as time moves on it will become ever more out of date.

Well, that’s it. Looking back I think my notes have stood the test of time reasonably well. My biggest message – among much doom and gloom – from someone who voted for remain, was don’t panic, nothing has really changed (yet), and that still stands. Of course when we do actually leave the EU many more of my assertions above will be truly tested.Your thoughts welcome below. However, please remember, constructive, polite, reasoned disagreement with me or other commentators is fine; abuse because someone doesn’t share your view isn’t.

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Always remember anyone can post on the MSE forums, so it can be very different from our opinion.

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